The mayor of Conglomerate Junction, an imaginary ramshackle old mining town in the Rocky Mountains, decided it was time to resurrect the traditional old-fashioned Independence Day celebration.

In part, he did it because he believed that his town would benefit by celebrating patriotism and community. But there was also the Business Development Committee of the Conglomerate Chamber of Commerce, which reported that merchants were losing business and the town was losing sales-tax revenue because its residents were going elsewhere to celebrate the Fourth, since Conglomerate had no parade or fireworks.

The first snag came toward the end of June, several weeks after the mayor had announced that Conglomerate would hold “a traditional American Independence Day Festival.” The mayor’s teenaged nephew was arrested for selling Silver Salutes, M-80s, skyrockets, cherry bombs, Roman candles, ladyfingers and other traditional American Independence Day materials.

Further, many merchants refused to close for the festivities. The mayor pointed out that back in the days of yore, even the Evil Eastern Capitalists had closed their mines and stamp mills to honor the Fourth. But the modern entrepreneurs said that, in their view, the only reason to hold any kind of festival was to bring tourists to town to spend money.

Even so, the parade was formed, led by an honor guard from the local VFW post, followed by most of the high school band, an old hose cart from the fire hall, mounted 4-H riders including the rodeo queen, and some restored old cars. The parade ended at the town park, where an antique cannon loaded with black powder and wadding was discharged right at noon.

This was the first time in living memory that something happened at its scheduled time in Conglomerate Junction, and the mayor felt encouraged as he stepped onto the platform to read the Declaration of Independence.

Before he could start, though, a young woman in the audience spoke up. “Mr. Mayor, America is a peace-loving nation. Why must we celebrate its birth with all these guns and explosions?”

The mayor was relieved when one of the honor guard asked, “May I?” The fellow was a retired Army major. He’d lived in town for only two years, but already he was a regular with the local curmudgeons who gathered for coffee most mornings in the non-smoke-free greasy-spoon diner whose walls were lined with taxidermy.

“Young lady,” the major said, “America was founded with violence. For more than a century after 1776, we fought continuous Indian wars. Also there was the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, World Wars I and II, Korea, Vietnam, the Iraq wars, and invasions of Haiti and Panama, to name a few. I suggest you learn more about our country’s history before you call this a peace-loving nation.”

She sat down with a stunned look, and the major stepped back with a winning smile. The mayor cleared his throat and began reading. “When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary … .”

He got through the second paragraph before the next interruption. “What’s this about ‘let facts be submitted to a candid world’?” one woman asked. “America has to be able to act in its own interest without caring about world opinion.”

She was followed by a clean-cut young man who bellowed out, “This whole thing sounds totally anti-British, and they’re like our biggest allies in the liberation of Iraq. Are you one of those traitor dudes that wants to offer therapy for terrorists, instead of killing them?”

The mayor started to feel as though he could use some therapy himself. Then the police chief stepped forward.

“Sir, the Department of Homeland Security issued a special alert for today, and I’m afraid I’ll have to report you for saying that ‘when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing inevitably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government’ in front of a public gathering.”

At that, the mayor asked the crowd to disperse and go back to work fleecing tourists. He had relished the Fourth during his youth, but now he had reluctantly concluded that there were some traditions that belonged to the past and really had no place in modern America.

Ed Quillen of Salida (ed@cozine.com) is a former newspaper editor whose column appears Tuesday and Sunday.